The Outer Worlds
Release Date: October 25, 2019 - March 7, 2023
Systems: PlayStation 4/5, Windows, Xbox One/S/X, Nintendo Switch
Publisher: Private Division
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Ported By: Virtuous
Time Spent: ~68 Hours
First and foremost, the Nintendo Switch port of The Outer Worlds is not a pretty game. The colors feel like they are muted and muddied, often with elements that are supposed to be integrated to some extent, like hair on a head, and feel like completely separate elements. It's not a great-looking game and if you're someone who will only play games at higher than low graphical settings and are in the market for the PS5 Pro, then you'll probably want to look elsewhere both in terms of video game ports and at a different article altogether. For the most part, the game ran at a steady I don't know how many frames per second, probably around the high twenties and maxing out at 30 and there might be a couple dips down to the high-mid 10s although there were never any sub-10 drops.
That aside, I loved The Outer Worlds for what it felt like to me. A Fallout-type game on a wide variety of science fiction worlds with an amazing set of characters as your crew, some with amazingly fleshed-out and endearing backstories and character side quests. This makes sense since it was Obsidian Entertainment that developed Fallout: New Vegas, so there's plenty of character-building, world-building, humor, and severed body parts all over this game. They very easily could have gone down the Firefly cookie-cutter route and at times it does feel similar with characters fulfilling certain archetypes like Parvati/Kaylee being the down-home mechanic from a backwater town, Vicar Max/Shepherd Book being the former preacher, Nyoka/Jayne being the muscle, Ellie/Simon is the ship's medic, and a couple of others who are all worth mentioning, but we'll do so later. The point is, while some of the characters have similar foundations to those in Firefly, there don't seem to be any copycats and are each their own person. There are specific quests for each crew member and if you have two with you out on missions, they will have conversations amongst themselves revealing both personal background and information about your current mission. And it's not just generic banter either, but specifically directed at the other crew member. It makes the game and world feel lived in and more real than random phrases from them only when you do specific actions; but there are those too, like when you trigger a crew member to perform a special attack.
Now that we're halfway through the article, The Outer Worlds is a first-person story-driven looter-shooter RPG with zero romanceable characters (because apparently, that's a big sticking point for a contingent of the gaming public). You play as a person rescued out of a cryogenic pod tucked away on a spaceship previously thought lost 70 years after it set out from Earth to help colonize a new star system. Your character is revived wherein you build them in typical TTRPG fashion by placing points into various stats (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Perception, etc) while also choosing a profession in your former life that can give minor stat bonuses (I was a "Cashier, Sub-Grade, Non-Supervisory" which bestowed upon me a +1 to Perception). It was the closest I could find to "Accountant" or "Bookkeeper." The whole process felt very tongue-in-cheek and I never felt that I needed to research everything in order to min/max my character build.
Without getting too into the weeds about the story, because there's a lot in terms of the main quest, the side quests, the crew quests, and the corporatization of the world-building that I wouldn't be able to cover very well, I'll just say that it's very much a right place at the right time while taking out The Man kind of story. After you create your character, you're instructed to meet a contact on a planet, only to have your escape pod crush your contact on impact and then you take over his identity (which becomes an optional running gag throughout the game) and his ship named The Unreliable. You talk in cities, kill bandits and wild animals outside of cities, then go back to cities to pawn all of your crap. Rinse, repeat. All while engaging in various quests. It's that kind of game and I loved it because a lot of the writing, both in terms of character dialogue and item descriptions felt both genuine and hilarious.
I was nervous about this being a first-person shooter on the Switch since my experience with the finer movements in the 2016 DOOM felt less than optimized for controller controls, and my first couple of combat encounters seemed to lean into that fear, but by the time I left that first planet, I was very comfortable with how the game operated. I took a sniper rifle approach to most situations as I would usually carry three ranged weapons and a melee weapon, so I could also have a close-quarter shotgun, a specialized handgun, or a machine gun, to go with a giant two-handed hammer. There was a fair amount of customization as well for each of your weapons as well as your armor and helmet. There was a hint of having a selection of different outfitted weapons depending on the situation and what you were fighting, but by halfway through the game, most of the time I would use the weapon that dealt the highest amount of damage.
One interesting mechanic was the ability to slow down time for a short period, referred to as Tactical Time Dilation. This was explained in-game, "Due to complications stemming from being revived after an extended hibernation, your brain processes time differently." This ability would slowly recharge over time so you couldn't just spam it during gun fights, although there were perks that would allow it to recharge faster and/or give you a small percentage chance to refill your TTD meter after a kill. Healing was an interesting mechanic and one that I didn't fully grasp until late in the game. Here you had an inhaler that you could mix different compounds to not only heal but also offer buffs depending on the combination of items used. I pretty much just used whatever items I had on hand and relied on the game to pick for me if I ran out of one item or another. The last mechanic that ended up being optional and that I never used was conditional on how you played the game. If you receive too much electrical damage, you might develop an electrical weakness that makes you more susceptible to electrical damage, but you do get to choose any perk from your list that you haven't already taken. The first one I got was from taking damage too often after jumping from heights that were too high. I can understand why this mechanic exists, but the fact that it's optional kind of makes this potential character-building mechanic make the execution of this seem rather futile. Maybe it existed in a forced form that you couldn't opt-out from early on in development but as more and more flaws were introduced, maybe it became such a hindrance that your character could be one-shotted by anything? I also felt that a generic "1 Perk" didn't feel like a great reward for having my movement speed permanently lowered by 30%.
The Outer Worlds was a wonderful game. It was an ugly game. It was a hilarious game. It was a beautiful game. It was a game that made me want to have companions with me (it helped that they couldn't die but were only incapacitated until after all of the enemies in a combat encounter were killed). When I found out that the DLC was only playable before you go into the final mission, I was a little sad because I did not feel like starting up a brand new character just to play through a couple of extra missions. But I do have the game through the Epic Game Store so I might revisit this world again either on my laptop (or a future one, let's be real) or on the Steam Deck. I was very excited when I heard that a sequel is still currently in development* and I hope that it involves all new characters as the main characters, maybe with a cameo here and there. I could live with that.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
The Stories You Tell
*The narration in that trailer is another great example of the writing in the game.
P.S. It video game me:
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